This is my contribution to the small fandom of Jak and Daxter, using a very underused character since I'm sure fics starring Maia can be counted with the fingers of one hand.
There will be explanatory notes about several points of the fic at the end.
Enjoy. Or not. Whatever.
14/08/2018: This oneshot has gone through a rather extensive process of editing and expansion in some instances. Hopefully, it's a better take this time around.
18/02/2019: Editing process take two to squash any remaining mistakes and bad phrasing moments, but I'm sure more still remain.
Fractal Innocence
The world burned around them, smoke clogged her nostrils and throat and her blood painfully throbbed in her head with all the signs of a building headache as they tried to regain control of their robot with little success.
How had a mere boy done this?! Everything they had worked so hard for was simply swept away like a castle of sand in the wind with his involvement! It was outrageous!
Maia coughed furiously, waving futilely around her with the vain hope to clear the air.
"Brother, do something! This piece of junk is falling apart with us still inside!" she yelled. An irritated growl was her only answer.
"Do you think I can't see that? Throw the remaining blast bombs!"
She obeyed his command, but some part of her knew it would be of no use. 'Why the hell did the Precursors install a jump platform on a silo of all things?!' Oh, how she wanted to jump out of this piece of scrap metal and fight the battle herself… The so vaunted robot of the Precursors had turned out to be nothing more than a hindrance!
Just in that moment, a bright light erupted from the silo. Peeking through half-closed lids, Maia managed to make out the towers that surrounded the silo combining the four known types of eco to create… "Light eco?! But - it can't be; it was supposed to be just a ridiculous myth! No one had ever managed to create it!" Gol gaped in disbelief.
It was a tremendous amount too, Maia noted. That much light eco could easily… "Don't let them get it!" she screamed in desperation. It was already too late.
The robot, battered by the boy's relentless assault, had been getting sluggish and slower to respond with each passing minute; by the point the boy got his hands on the Light Eco, it was obvious there was no way it could have done anything to stop him. And it didn't.
Maia and her brother could only watch as the boy became engulfed in a blinding aura of light. The ensuing light eco-powered blast completely wrecked the Precursor robot beyond repair.
'That much is obvious,' was Maia's sardonic thought before the robot lurched forward. It flinched erratically; currents of lightning traced its blackened shell and small explosions rocked through its body for several moments before staying still in the air for a moment. Then, the robot lost whatever little power it still had and plummeted to the ground to the ground like a rock from thousands of miles up high in the air.
However, the control cabin itself had been separated from the body with one of the explosions. It soared through the air, in a collision course with the silo and terror gripped Maia, trapped in the cabin as she was. It was as if some subconscious part of her already knew where they were going to land.
'Has it really come to this?' The idea of dying after being so close to success was a harsh, bitter pill to swallow for the female Acheron and though it grated her, she resigned to her death.
If someone were to ask her what happened next, she wouldn't have been able to answer even if she wanted, because everything happened at lightning-fast speed.
Something suddenly exploded on her left and a searing hot wave of air blistered her skin, blinding her. Moments later, she realized that the blood-curling howls of agony filling the cabin were hers. She vaguely heard someone curse loudly before the sound of glass breaking into a million of shards reverberated inside the small space of the control room, drowning her own screams even as they flew through the air towards the pool of dark eco.
A calloused hand gripped her arm with anxious roughness.
"Live, you fool!"
She wasn't even able to finish the half incoherent question in her mind as a blast of dark eco flung her through the destroyed eyehole of the robot's head, mere moments before it fell into the silo's pool and the two sides of the top slammed shut.
Flying over the air, Maia landed harshly onto the now covered floor of the silo with a pained grunt before falling immobile, lowly moaning in pain. Her limbs felt heavy and she could feel a sharp, throbbing pain on the side of her head from the moment she crashed onto the ground. There was copious bleeding covering her scalp and part of her face and the entirety of her left side was badly burned due to the explosion. On top of that, the impending headache had finally arrived and being flung through the cabin had simply kickstarted it.
Maia felt like emptying her guts right there, but more than that, she felt weak. The mere feeling of ugly helplessness that came immediately afterwards made her want to retch right there, but for a completely different reason than the headache. Her body was going numb and she still couldn't believe it. This couldn't be happening… The dark eco should have protected them! It should-
"Maia."
It was amazing how one single word could carry such amount of disapproval when it was Samos who uttered it, but the sheer weight of her contempt and resentment for him gave her the strength to overcome her injures, just enough to spit on him and die with a smug smile on her lips.
With a titanic effort, she turned her head to look at the old fool.
"I warned you, Maia! This is what happens when you meddle too much with dark eco! Look at what you've become; not even a shade of the Maia I knew, just a warped version of her."
The raw disgust and weariness in the old fool's voice ignited her blood in a way she'd never thought possible. Maia glared at him, trying to convey through it just how much she wanted to grip his fat neck between her hands and choke the life out of him.
"Sh- shut up. You know… nothing about us!" Her voice, croaky and rough, cracked when she tried to yell and she went into a fit of wet coughs instead, spitting blood on the silo's floor.
The other pests had gathered next to the old fool by then, but she ignored them. Apart from the boy and the old fool, the others deserved no acknowledgment.
"I know enough, you fool girl!" Samos thundered in a rare display of genuine anger, which made the young girl with blue hair next to him flinch away. "I warned you of the dangers of dark eco! I told you what would happen! It corrupts everything it touches, but did you listen? Of course not, why would you, when you believed yourselves to have all the answers?! Look at the price of your arrogance now - Gol is dead and you look like you're about to join him any moment!
"Don't… say his name, you don't… deserve-" Maia stopped, coughing and hissing in pain before deciding to stay silent, gritting her teeth. It wouldn't change anything and she'd only be hurting herself more than necessary.
"Ha! Whatever, you crazy woman, you're just mad you lost against the awesomeness that is the Orange Lightning and his trusty sidekick!" boasted the talking rodent as he struck a ridiculous pose.
Angered, the old fool clobbered the rat with his walking staff, sending him sprawling to the ground. "Quit fooling around, this is not the time for your mindless buffoonery!"
Had she not been so dead tired, Maia would have cackled loudly. Not that she'd ever thank Samos for that, of course. "So - what? Going to... kill me now? Or will you leave that… to others too?" Maia sneered. However, bloodied and exhausted as she was, it was simply a pitiful act that fooled no one.
Even so, so red was the old sage's face from rage that he looked to be at the brink of an apoplexy. Too easy, she thought with the barest amount of smug amusement. Then again, the green eco sage had always been an easy one to rile up, provided one knew which buttons to push.
Still, he fidgeted with reluctance, clearly unable to make up his mind. Maia would've crooned with malicious amusement at such display of indecision were her injuries not taking their toll on her body. The hot, burning hatred fueling her just moments ago had cooled considerably, like a spark quelled too soon and she was forced to settle for looking on as the old fool, the girl –what was she even doing here, anyway?-, the rodent and the other sages started arguing about what they should do with her.
Well, if they didn't hurry up, she was pretty sure she'd keel over on her own just fine.
'Wait, what of the damn boy?'
Her eyes quickly found him to be standing slightly away from everyone. Somehow, he had gone unnoticed with Samos' spat with her; she couldn't help but stare when she realized he was still surrounded by light eco. Such pureness… even at such distance from her, it prickled at her skin in an unpleasant way. With light eco being an element directly opposite to dark eco, he was right now everything that she, simply by law of nature, must destroy.
Their gazes crossed. He had a wondering expression on his face, as if he were pondering the value of something, before he resolutely nodded to himself. Moments later, he started walking towards Maia, startling her.
The prickling sensation intensified to very uncomfortable levels as he drew closer. What was he doing? Was he going to kill her? With chilling horror, Maia realized that no, he wasn't going to kill her - but that did little to reassure her at all because she was fairly sure she knew what he wanted to do and her entire self recoiled from the thought.
"No- no, don't!" she yelled.
He halted at the sound of her hoarse denial, but apparently, whatever she said wasn't going to deter him for long because he stopped only for a moment before he resumed walking. The others had fallen into awed silence, only now realizing that he was still channeling light eco. They looked at the boy with expectation, waiting to see what he would do.
"No! Get away!"
The scream did nothing to deter him this time and Maia flopped on the stone floor, flipping to her stomach with a pained groan as the stone scrapped her burns. Then, she started crawling over the floor in an attempt to get away from the boy and his scorching light, but she only managed to move a few inches with her battered body, leaving a trail of blood over smooth stone.
Nothing of that registered in her mind, possessed as she was by the primal need to move away from the scorching light approaching her. With her back on the boy, Maia could only hear as he kept walking closer and yet, she could clearly imagine the look of pity on his face.
'To Oblivion with your pity!' she growled in her mind. The prickling over her skin intensified. To Maia it almost felt like a raging inferno.
Turning her face to look behind over her shoulder, Maia could see a flickering beacon of light through the fog of pain and blood almost right on top of her, shining bright even as it started to flicker and fade. Not fast enough, not quick enough! He was-
"No… NO!"
But the boy didn't listen. Ever silent, he raised his arms and the remaining light eco surged, thrumming as it answered his call.
Her scream pierced the silence of the morning dawn, a blood-curdling yell of pain that chilled bone and flesh.
xxOOOxx
Maia regained consciousness with a strangled gasp. Patting down the mattress, it only took her a moment to realize she was back on the bed in the old fool's damnable house, but it was still a moment too long.
'Get a hold of yourself, girl,' she thought with a huff of annoyance, very much aware of the way her heart pumped furiously in her chest. Just a nightmare, she told herself. A bad dream of that day.
Maia slipped silently out of her bed; she knew it would be useless to try to get back to sleep now. Sweeping her gaze over the room half shrouded in shadows, she looked up to the tiny circular window placed up high on the wall. A trickle of moonlight shone through it, faintly illuminating her room; the window was on the small side, but she really didn't care as long as it served its main purpose.
After Gol's death and the purging of Maia's dark eco, they eventually settled on bringing her at Samos' house, mainly because no one really felt like killing someone in cold blood after what Jak had done and especially because she had been unconscious.
Obviously enough, no one trusted her to not go on a rampage and destroy Sandover, which is why there was always someone watching her. 'A foolish idea. I could simply wait for everyone to fall asleep and do whatever I wanted, after all.' However, she kept such thoughts to herself.
Shaking her head, Maia made her way up to the small mirror attached to a wall with a couple steps. Standing in front of it, she stared at the face looking back at her, a ritual that she'd been doing ever since the first day she'd seen her reflection after… after the light eco.
The skin of the the woman that looked back at her was a middle point between the normal rosy white hue of her skin from... before and the grayish-blue that it had adopted after the dark eco poisoning. She also had long blonde hair once again, unlike the sickly whitish blonde that had become a distinctive trait of hers. Maia's eyes glazed over, remembering every moment when Gol commented on it, the fondness in his paused drawl that never faded from her memories…
The mere thought of it just made even more unbearable the raw, hollow feeling her brother's death had created.
Her whole body trembled, but she couldn't even begin to decipher whether it was from grief or anger. What about everything else, everything they'd tried to accomplish? She couldn't even put her finger on what she had lost to begin with. It felt like all that happened a lifetime ago, like trying to grasp wisps of smoke.
Looking at the lightened hue of her skin for what seemed to be the umpteenth time, it all just became too much. Her fist shot up, smashing the mirror into a myriad of little fragments and she left the house, fleeing into the night and running away from everything she had become.
She didn't get too far.
Much as she loathed to admit it, she was strangely uneasy at the thought of leaving the known area of Sandover and its surroundings in her state. Whatever the boy had done, it had also scrambled horribly her powers. With her ability to channel the dark eco and use her powers crippled, she wasn't going to take any chances.
In just a couple of minutes Maia reached the large rocky formation between Sandover and the Forbidden Jungle. Considering it a good spot, it wasn't long before she was sitting atop it and staring into the horizon.
Up there and with no more company than her thoughts, Maia let her mind wander as dawn slowly peeked over the horizon. Everything had changed so quickly… what was she supposed to do? Her brother was dead and she… well, she couldn't remember a time when her brother hadn't been by her side.
"If only you were still here, Gol… What am I supposed to do without you? We had always been together since we were foolish children with no one to care for us. How could- how could you leave me just like that, dammit?! We promised we'd always be there for each other!" she yelled, punching the rock next to her. The worst part was that she didn't even know whether it was the grief or the anger talking. "I wish I could go back... I never wanted this. Oh, Gol, I… I miss you," she whispered, intimately aware of the way her voice cracked and the tight lump in her throat.
She had always considered herself to be a strong-willed woman, one capable of taking everything in stride and coming up on top at the end of it. However, she had never entertained the ridiculous possibility of her brother dying and his loss was a blow Maia didn't know how to handle.
Affectionate gestures, thinking out loud while expecting him to pick it up and start debating a new theory… all that was suddenly gone, vanished as if it were a mere dream. The thought that the powers they'd gained from the dark eco, lessened and crippled as they were, remained while her brother was dead left her feeling sickened to the very core.
When the boy had used the remaining light eco on her, it had felt right and wrong at the same thing. It had felt like excising a fundamental part of yourself, even when you knew beyond doubt that it was an completely rotten beyond saving. The light eco had given her balance; it had pushed the corrupting essence of the dark eco away and allowed her mind to regain its sanity. Enough to fully understand what she had lost.
The former Sage frowned, clenching her hands absentmindedly. Though her memories from… before were mostly untouched, they felt bizarre and wrong. They were disconnected, incoherent; as if seen through a tinted lens.
'Is this how madness works? To be so far gone that your very self is unrecognizable…'
But the dawn and the dew had no answers to give to her and the forest behind her remained silent, as if echoing the sentiment.
Maia didn't know if the return of her sanity was a good thing or not, either. A bitter laugh suddenly left her lips. There were a lot of things she didn't know lately, it seemed. If only she had died had died with her brother... at least that way, she wouldn't be feeling so disgustingly lost.
"What do you want?"
The boy couldn't have hoped to sneak up on her. She had seen him trudging along the beach towards the entrance to the forest, acting as if he were looking for something. Or someone, an idea which was proved correct when he spotted her before she could lean back and disappear from sight. He had quickened his pace and less than five minutes later, he was standing behind her.
Maia had to consciously squash the faint prickle of annoyed jealousy that arose within her. It had taken her a bit more to climb up to the top.
Of course, the boy didn't say anything. What had she expected, anyway?
"Whatever, just leave me be. I'm not in the mood," she muttered.
She spared him no glance even when he sat next to her. In another life, she'd have blasted him for his arrogance before he could have gotten five feet from her, but in such life she wouldn't have been purged of the dark eco in her system.
The Maia from before was dead.
"Ugh, look at me, moping around. Pathetic," she scowled, disgusted with herself, but said disgust quickly gave way to anger as her dark thoughts were exacerbated by his presence. "I wouldn't be in this state if you had given the light eco to your stupid rodent friend, you damn bastard! I wouldn't have to suffer to see your faces every day! I could have died with my brother in peace instead of wasting away in this blasted sinkhole!" she snapped, face red from anger.
However, if she expected some sort of noteworthy reaction, Maia was sorely disappointed. The boy only gave her a calm look before shaking his head.
"And you just don't talk at all! What are you, a damn mute?! My brother didn't die just so you could shrug it away with a mere shake of the head!" she hissed with venom in her voice.
For the first time that she could recall, the boy looked hesitant and slightly unsure of how to respond, which only served to incense her further. However, before she could do something they both would regret at a later date, he shot to his feet with a sudden grin, startling her, and quickly tugged her arm. He looked like he'd just had a great idea.
"What do you want now? Just leave!" she sneered petulantly, slapping his hand away like one would swat away an annoying fly.
Undeterred, the boy gestured to the forest behind them and tugged again, getting the same reaction for a second time. However, he kept pestering her until she finally snapped. "Precursors damn you! Fine, I'll follow, just stop annoying me, you pest!"
Glaring daggers at the back of his head, she followed him deep into the forest, observing with a scowl as he quickly dealt with any feral beasts that thought they would prove to be an easy snack. Finally, they reached a good spot in the small plateau in front of the ancient Precursor temple.
Despite her reluctance, Maia couldn't deny she was curious about whatever it was that the boy wanted to show her. However, he surprised her when he settled into a loose fighting stance.
"What are you- wait, you want to fight me?"
She had to give it to him; the boy could pull off some impressive expressive faces, if the slightly challenging smirk was anything to go by. Maia glared at him, but she remained skeptical. He couldn't really expect to survive a fight with her now that he didn't have his light eco to protect him, could he? With her dark eco powers, she could obliterate him in no…
Maia's face shifted into an ugly scowl. Right, she'd forgotten that her powers were unreliable at best now. 'Damn, fighting the boy will be harder than I thought.' Still, the idea of duking it out sounded more appealing by the second and this way, at least, she could… Her lips curved upwards in a mockery of a smile, but she did nothing to prevent it, settling herself into a fighting stance.
If she was honest with herself -truly honest- she didn't really hate the boy for her brother's death despite her harsh words and animosity… well, at least not as much as the sages. It was true he'd been just an errand boy for the old fool - but he was still the boy whose actions ultimately led to Gol's death. That made him a very easy and understandable target for all the negative emotions she had to let out somehow.
'If nothing else, I will make sure to turn that pretty face of his black and purple.'
Indeed, this was the perfect chance to take a small revenge on the boy, as petty as it sounded. He was certainly in for a surprise if he expected her to be a pretty wallflower like the annoying little girl with the blue hair.
"Alright, you're on. Just don't be surprised if I break some of your bones," she warned with a smirk, but he only mirrored it before charging forwards.
Maia only had a mere second to consider the fact that he was faster than she'd thought he'd be before the boy appeared in front of her.
And then there was little time for thought.
Side step, slap aside the punch and counter to the diaphragm. He evades and a kick is already waiting there. He's dazed for a moment and she presses the opening. He blocks it at the last second and jumps back.
Taking a small breather, Maia could see his surprise plain on his face, but he immediately jumped in close again, not wanting to give her any breathing space.
The attacks are raw, no style but with clear definition. Strong. He parries a kick with a forearm and connects a sucker punch to her stomach. No time to bend over in pain. A spinning kick follows in and she's thrown some feet away.
Hacking in pain, she sat up with a groan. The boy wasn't pulling his punches, not even a bit; she'd been caught entirely off guard that last counter. Surprisingly for Maia, the notion that he bested her that moment didn't make her mad at all. Standing up, she laughed even though she wasn't sure why and she wondered if she had already gone off the deep end.
She also wondered if she even cared.
She jumps at him, beginning a complex dance of kicks and punches. No time for thought, everything is a blur of images and sensations. Just instinct. Mind numb, her muscles relax. After years of unuse, the patterns start coming back. Punch to the face, counter, dodge to the right, dodge backwards, block, low kick, punch.
They were mostly even, but Maia simply didn't notice. Her mind was blank and there was nothing in it but the fight and the warrior in front of her. An eager smile formed on her face as they duked it out. This was everything that she could ask for.
xxOOOxx
Some time later after the fight they laid on the grass, panting heavily. They had clearly done a number on each other: numerous bruises marred their skins and she could feel the throbbing pain of her busted upper lip. Thankfully, she had been able to repay the favor as he sported a black eye and perhaps a missing tooth - she wasn't completely sure about that one.
There was still a smile on her face, though it was worn-out and tired this time. It came as a surprise to her, but she... actually enjoyed the brawl. It washed away all her worries and left her in a state of content exhaustion.
A brief nap sounded so very good right now…
"See? You stopped thinking stuff."
Had she not been so damn tired, her understated reaction would have probably been much bigger. As it was, she could only produce low grunt that sounded half surprised at best. "Did you just... speak?"
"I know how," he replied, sounding vaguely annoyed. "Just… don't do it. Never had need. They understood. The others, too. Then later, why bother?"
Well, he might know how to speak, but he certainly lacked in speaking skills, she thought. His pacing was wrong: sometimes it was hesitant and others, rushed. His sentences were choppy and even incomplete at times; it was like they only had the barest skeleton of a sentence, the most basic things for them to be understood.
She told him as much in no uncertain tone with malicious amusement and he only rolled his eyes with a wry smile.
Instead of replying, he decided to change the subject. "Your skills, at fighting. Where you learnt?"
That made Maia pause. It had been a long time since she'd thought about her teenage years. It all seemed to be a lifetime away. Turning to look at the treetops swaying to the breeze, Maia sighed.
"I… I learnt them a long time ago. My brother… Gol was always the more studious one, the one fascinated by the mysteries of this world; of us two, he was the one more interested in discovering them and picking them apart," she started explaining with a wistful look. "I was the more active one of us two. I just couldn't stay put and do nothing, I guess, but I always liked helping him with… well, you get the idea, " she eventually muttered after trailing off, realizing she'd come very close to a sore topic.
But Jak simply encouraged her to continue.
"I started picking up some things here and there, but I never looked for someone to teach me - I always thought it to be a waste of time and effort. Eventually, I created everything I know from scratch. We made a point of branching off into different fields, of course. We… we never liked being second best at something. But then we got interested in eco and we found it. Or perhaps it found us."
Maia trailed off, her mind heavy with the reminder of her brother but surprisingly, it didn't sour her mood as much as she'd feared. Exhausted and tired from their spar, it was liberating, almost cathartic to talk about it after so long. The hollow constriction in her chest that she'd felt ever since her brother's death loosened, if only slightly.
Suddenly, a shrill cry echoed near them, piercing the silence that had settled over them.
"Jak! Jak! Where are you, buddy?! Maia has disappeared! We've got to protect the village,, put the Flu Flu somewhere safe! Knowing that woman, she plans to kill and eat it!"
Rolling her eyes, Maia watched as an orange flash of color burst into the plateau that had served as their impromptu fight stage. The rodent known as Daxter looked frantic, but he quickly stopped dead on his tracks the moment he spotted them.
"What?!" she demanded forcefully upon his staring. However, the annoying rodent only slapped his forehead in an over-dramatic display before muttering something.
'Nothing of worth, no doubt,' she thought with derision. She growled at him, clearly pissed at him for disrupting the rare moment of peace, but she quieted down despite herself with gritted teeth when the boy gave her a reproachful look.
The boy's rat friend started blabbering, having missed their byplay. "Jak, man, ya sure we can trust this crazy wacko? Who knows what she'll do to us when we're not looking! Why, I oughta-!"
"If you haven't noticed yet, it's been two months since our battle," she cut him off with an irritated tone. "Trust me, if I wanted to do something, I'd have done it by now. Starting with you."
"Ha, you don't scare me, you dark eco lady freak! Bring it on, I'll teach you not to mess with the Orange Lightning!" the rat boasted as he adopted a pose that looked like it was supposed to be martial art stance one. It was honestly degrading and painful to watch.
However, the boy clearly appreciated the wretch that was his friend, if the small smile on his face was anything to go by so she refrained from being harsh… much.
"Ugh, do you ever shut up? I should've eviscerated you when I had the chance."
Well, Maia had never claimed to be a soft-spoken individual.
The rat looked like he was about to retort but in that moment, a lurker toad jumped down onto the plateau. Its appearance silenced everyone as both parties looked at each other, but the beast quickly focused its beady eyes on the rodent, who gulped; the hunger shining in them wasn't a particularly comforting sight.
He tried to inspire sympathy in his friend - "Jak… save me?" – but the blond only smiled innocently, most likely thinking he needn't worry about his furry friend. Maia hoped the lurker would eat the idiot.
The two elves, exhausted, simply looked on as the lurker pounced on Daxter with surprising speed and agility. Daxter rolled awkwardly away from the beast at the last minute and quickly ran towards Sandover, screaming for someone to help him.
xxOOOxx
Some time passed after that first spar with the boy. Some things... changed, but others, well, they remained mostly the same.
To the villagers of Sandover, her past actions were still a black stigma on her person, a silent accusation of culpability that shone in their fright-filled eyes. It was honestly amusing to Maia, did they think she was blind? It was disgusting how obvious they were in their fear, steering away from her whenever she was forced to go into the village proper –not that those were numerous times, of course.
She could feel their condemning, yet terrified eyes focused on her. A part of her could understand why they reacted that way, buy none if them ever approached her, tried to demand an explanation from her. They were content to keep their distance, to remain in their ignorance.
Maia cared not for such spineless people.
'Their opinions are meaningless and their existence, even more so. Content to live boring, banal lives that amount to nothing; they will be forgotten in a couple generations. I am nothing like them.'
The all-too familiar prickling of anger was still there, mixed with the scorn in her thoughts and still as hard to throttle down as before.
However, her brother and she had never been in Sandover for long and had always stayed in the old Samos' house whenever they stopped by many years ago. That meant none of the villagers should even remember them or even know they were behind the lurker attacks from months ago.
Given the fact they had sequestered themselves for several years after the old fool's warnings, that meant only someone who already knew about it could have spilled the beans because the villagers' cowardice would have never allowed them to find out by themselves. And that made up a very small group of people.
With such realization, Maia's face morphed into an ugly snarl, sharp teeth shining in the sunlight. There was only one option to this situation: she'd have to keep a keen eye in the goings and comings of everyone in Sandover.
Somebody was going to pay.
xxOOOxx
It was a warm day of autumn months later when Jak dropped the proverbial bomb on her: he wanted her to come along on his particular quest of gathering Power Cells. Apparently, they needed a hundred of them to activate a Precursor door located atop the citadel that had housed the Acherons until Gol's death.
Maia immediately recognized the door they were talking about, how could she not? The Citadel had been their home many years until that fateful day. They themselves had been curious when they found the ancient gate, but not ultimately interested in hunting down such a tremendous number of Power Cells when there were more interesting and immediate secrets to investigate. They simply believed it to be not worth the effort.
Truthfully, the determination that Jak and his rodent friend displayed to find all the needed Power Cells was most likely greatly aided by the fact they already had a large number of them. Still, who even knew how many Cells were really in the Earthlands? She was sure there were more than one hundred and one of them –though, some could have been lost forever to a number reasons.
In the end, she agreed if only to get away from the Sandover and its oppressive stranglehold with its blasted villagers. She just hoped they could find the exact number for the gate to open, because she'd really hate letting all the effort she was going to put into it go to waste. Putting a considerable amount of distance between her and that doddering old fool that was Samos was also a plus.
And so, despite a fair amount of grumbling from Jak's rat friend, she joined their efforts.
Looking for the Power Cells, they travelled far and wide across the Earthlands. From Misty Island –hadn't those faded memories been a bitter pill to swallow?- to the Boggy Swamp, they scoured every nook and cranny they could think of in a self-imposed quest that seemed to have no end in sight.
Surprisingly, their –admittedly- somewhat aimless wandering felt less like a chore and more like a field trip with the loosest concept of schedule. Jack and the rodent, Maia noted, took their time sightseeing whenever they wanted, eating snacks when they felt like it as soon as they found an excellent spot to do so. This sort-of-but-not-really nomadic lifestyle was not what she expected at all, but she was included every time –even if grudgingly by the orange rat- and she found herself enjoying it with time.
In the recesses of her mind where none could rip her secrets from her, she couldn't suppress the thought that it felt good, it felt right and she didn't want those sensations to fade into nothingness like so many other things had done before.
That scared her more than anything else.
Nonetheless, their scavenging trip kept them all busy and it proved to be a rewarding time. As time passed, Maia eventually came to know her two companions. She never intended to care, it just… happened. The annoying rat - Daxter, she had to remind herself more than once- was the talkative one. That much one was obvious, but Jak still talked from time to time – which even the rodent noted as something fairly unusual.
Maia suspected it was for her sake, because she didn't have the experience of years to be able to understand perfectly his non-verbal means of communication, but she wasn't about to complain.
In any case, she wouldn't consider Daxter someone she was terribly close to, but at least she didn't feel the urge to throttle him as much as before… which wasn't admittedly saying much, since he really knew how to make someone really hate him when he wanted.
At the very least, their travels proved interesting enough and there were always new opportunities for research. For example, Jak's multi-channeling ability.
Unlike Sages, which could channel and generate a particular type of eco on their own, Jak could only channel eco. However, one key difference between the two sides was that Jak was able to use more than one type of eco. For all intents and purposes, that should be impossible. Well, not really impossible, but so damn unusual that one was more likely to be hit by lightning twice on the same day than meeting a multi-channeling individual.
And she knew he could do it, because aside from dark eco, she had seen him channel every known type of eco.
Jak's ability was perhaps one of the more interesting topics of interest to her since he was the first multi-channeling individual she had met in her life and he'd probably be the only one. Whether that meant something or he was simply a strange freak of nature, Maia couldn't know and the old fool had quickly shut her down the one time she'd questioned him about it.
Still, her interest would have been nothing compared to Gol's. Knowing her brother, he'd have loved to conduct all manners of tests just to see if it the trait could be replicated… at least, after riding out the orgasmic bliss of finding something so ridiculously rare in the Earthlands.
'He would've been so giddy, taking several days just thinking about the possible reasons for the phenomenon.'
Thinking of her brother still left on a somber mood months after his death and once again, Maia disconsolately cursed the day they decided to study the dark eco. No amount of eco study and discoveries was worth her brother's life. Nothing was.
Standing on the edge of an isolated peak in Snowy Mountain, Maia sighed, feeling as the slight chill creep up her arms but she paid it no mind.
"I wish you could be here with me, brother. I don't know if there's something else after death or merely the end of the self, but I've been thinking… what would you say to me if you could see me? If you could talk to me? Would you accept what I'm doing? The boy, Jak… he and the old fool were responsible for your death. I felt like I should do something to avenge your death for the longest time - but I just… I… "
It was no use, she couldn't put to words the strange bundle of conflicting emotions warring within her. Growling, Maia let out a yell of frustration before falling silent as she looked down on the world below with glazed eyes.
Despite her many flaws, she wasn't conceited. Now that the dark eco wasn't warping her thoughts, she was perfectly aware they had become monsters. Twisted by the dark eco into a mockery of sentient beings, they had sought to reshape the world into… what, exactly?
'A purer world, flooded with dark eco,' Jak had basically told her. Such madness.
A sudden surge of disgust aimed at herself rose from within, but she quickly quelled it with a snarl. She had done many horrendous things during her stint as her previous self, but the damage had already been fixed as best as it could be by Jak. There was nothing to be done about it, and wallowing in guilt and misery would just destroy her otherwise.
However, the fact that the dark eco had turned her into a twisted, crazed woman bothered her more than she wanted to acknowledge. Even though Gol was the more scholarly of the two, the two prided in their intellect and ability to hold a conversation in a wide number of topics. Becoming a lunatic bent on destroying the world was something she was disgusted by.
A shrill whistle broke her out of her self-absorption and she immediately leant to a side. The lurker that had been trying to sneak up on her missed its attack and carried by the momentum of it, stumbled on the edge. The lurker tried to regain its balance, but Maia ruthlessly kicked it away with a harsh blow, looking on with amusement as it fell to its death from thousands of feet in the air with a horrifying howl of terror.
Turning around, she spotted Jak waiting for her, a questioning look on his face. "Having trouble?"
"Nothing that I couldn't deal with," she answered with a shrug. "Need something?"
"Lunch time. Coming or will you stay for now?"
The smirk quickly shifted into a faint genuine smile as she followed Jak down to their small camping site. Even if she couldn't put to words the confusing mess that were her feelings, maybe taking things in stride was enough.
xxOOOxx
More months passed as they relentlessly continued on their self-imposed quest. They found Cells as they came, so it was completely normal to go for an entire week without finding one, but that didn't deter them in the slightest.
One of the highlights of their travels was the continued spars she had with Jak. Just like the first one, they were exhilarating and they pushed both Maia and Jak to their limits. She suspected there was a bit of a competition streak in Jak after he saw she could easily keep up with him, but she didn't mind at all. The many years of training she had were enough to give her the slight edge to win their spars, but Jak's youth and his constant fighting as he made his way to their Citadel let him keep up pretty well against her more experienced self.
Still, it was shocking just how much she had let herself go in that regard. Even now, after months of constant traveling, she wasn't back to one hundred per cent yet. But she'd get there - she had nothing but time.
'And the Acherons are relentless, if nothing else.'
Of course, she wasn't about to benefit from those spars without giving anything in exchange. With that in mind, she went one day to Jak and told him that she'd teach him how to speak properly, because the incoherent sentences gave her a headache and it reflected badly on him to be lacking in such a thing. And no, he couldn't get out of it and no, she didn't want his thanks.
She'd never thought she'd feel strangely proud when seeing his surprised, yet grateful face.
xxOOOxx
Of course, not everything could be perfect.
The situation at Sandover was the same every time they returned to the village to drop off whatever Cells they'd found: the villagers hid away from her or simply cowered in her presence if she stumbled upon one of them by surprise in the rare times she left Samos' house to take a walk at the beach near the village. They were pathetic in their cowardice, but over time she'd realized her initial contempt had eventually shifted into pity. They simply were… unimportant on the bigger scheme of things and she didn't care enough to try to make them drop their preconceptions of her.
However, it was during one of those briefs stays at Sandover that she finally discovered just how had the villagers known about her involvement in the events of Misty Island and the lurker attacks; Samos' daughter –the mechanic, what was her name again? Kiera?- had been the one to tell everyone who was the one responsible for it.
In hindsight, she should've realized sooner it would have been her. To her annoyance, the only reason she found out was because she stumbled upon a conversation between her and a villager by sheer luck, but it proved to be enough to discover the girl's involvement.
Samos' daughter… They had kept their distance and their interactions had been cordial, but definitely chilly. All the better for her, because she had no interest in associating with the girl more than what was necessary. The same applied to the old fool, because for all the girl's faults, he wasn't that much better off. She didn't bother voicing her thoughts, but the belittling green eco sage wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue in his self-righteousness either.
Still, she couldn't let things stand as they were so one day she decided to finally confront the girl. She went down to her corner of Samos' hut, where she was working on her flying vehicle. A Zoomer, as Jak called it.
"I want to speak with you."
Surprised, Samos' daughter looked up from her Zoomer and glanced at her. The former Sage could see the veiled animosity in her eyes when she recognized her. "Well, what do you want, Maia?"
Raising an eyebrow, Maia made a displeased clucking sound with her tongue. "I didn't know we were already on first name basis," she commented.
The blue-haired elf just glared. "I'm working right now, so if there's nothing important you want to bother me with, I'd appreciate it if I could continue to do something productive."
'So you want to play hard? Okay then, I can do that too.'
"Very well, I usually don't beat around the bush with these things. You see, I know you're the one who told the villagers about me. About what I did. I don't particularly care, but I'd prefer if you at least didn't go behind my back next time," she said with a flat voice.
It was telling how the girl didn't even try to deny it. "No. They deserve to know they have an homicidal psycho living in the town," the mechanic growled, her dislike for Maia shining through. "It's not fair to them when you made their lives hell for several months."
Maia scoffed, rolling her eyes. "It seems you might be blind as well as mentally impaired. These fools would have been much better off living in ignorance instead of cowering for their lives every time I step outside this house. And what's more, have you seen me go into a slaughtering rampage? Have I been dancing on the mangled corpses of the fools in this village? No! You want to know why? It's thanks to the light eco; that and Jack. You should thank him, instead of blindly focusing on your hatred for me," the blonde woman told the girl with a cold look.
"You... how dare you?!" the young mechanic exclaimed in anger. "Everything that Jak has done these past months has been to correct every screw up you and your mad brother did! The Lurkers attacks, the kidnapping of the Sages… all of it was your fault! You think the dark eco being purged from your brother wipes away everything you did?! You tried to destroy the entire world!" The blue-haired girl unflinchingly accused Maia, who now sported an amused smile. "You should have died with your brother at the Silo."
Unfortunately for Kiera, Maia easily weathered her accusations. Even her final condemnation did little to dampen her high spirits, now that she'd realized the root of the issue. She couldn't help it. She cackled, utterly amused. "Oooh, I get it now. You're jealous," she declared with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
Her words caught the mechanic off guard, who looked at her with wariness. "What the hell are you talking about now?"
"Isn't it obvious? You're jealous of me," she laughed. "This is just too good! What, afraid I'll steal your precious Jak away from you? We've spent many months travelling all over the world while hunting for those Cells, after all," she mocked as she crossed her arms under her chest, purposefully highlighting her more voluptuous figure compared to Keira's smaller proportions.
"Why, you!" Kiera exclaimed, reddening in anger. In that moment, Maia noted, she and her father weren't all that dissimilar.
With an angry snarl, the girl threw herself at Maia, but she had been expecting something to that effect and the motion looked painfully telegraphed to the blonde. The blonde woman caught Kiera's wrist effortlessly and the former Sage shoved the girl aside with a scoff, throwing her to the floor. Looking down at the mechanic, Maia watched as humiliation and fury battled for dominance in her expression before giving her a vengeful smirk.
She only had one thing to say. "You ratted me out to the villagers out of jealousy and pettiness, but I still could squash you like the bug you are, eco powers or not. Remember that, girl."
And with that she left, smirk firmly in place. The entire exchange had been petty, needlessly cruel and completely antagonizing… And Maia would do it over and over again, if given the chance.
'No one crosses an Acheron and gets away with it.'
xxOOOxx
If Maia expected some sort of retaliation from the verbal spat with the Samos' daughter, the blonde elf was disappointed. The old fool didn't look particularly troubled and his interactions with her stayed the same, which meant the girl hadn't told anyone about their little spat. However, the angry glare the girl sent her way every time she was near was a pretty good indicator that their confrontation was anything but over.
Only time would tell whether the girl would attempt something or not in the future. She wasn't overly worried about the girl running off to Daddy, though. It had been almost a year since they had started going on their Sphere hunting quest and in all that time, her opinion of her former mentor had only lowered.
He had gotten soft, stiff. Being the green eco Sage had done little to counteract that, it seemed, and he much preferred to delegate tasks to Jack and Daxter with some half-assed excuse of training for Jak. She was just surprised he still hadn't confronted her. One would think the old Sage would have driven her away from his house by now for everything she'd done - or tried to, at the very least. He couldn't be feeling guilty out out some perceived sense of responsibility, right?
Well, whatever convoluted reason he had, he'd find little sympathy in her. The light eco had not made her a paragon of virtue –perish such ludicrous thought-, it had merely purged the madness derived from the dark eco out of her system.
She did enjoy seeing the wary and uncomfortable look he sported whenever he saw her around Jak. Knowing how dour he'd become in his old age, he was most likely uneasy about her possibly corrupting Jak. His lack of faith on his supposed protégé annoyed her, but she really shouldn't let it bother her too much. The young boy was craftier than what the old fool gave him credit for, that was for sure. He'd keep surprising the old fool, this she knew.
Their hunt for the Cells continued, scouring all their known nearby locations that could still be hiding away some of the precious batteries. But eventually, the number of Cells they found in the Earthlands dwindled until they had gathered all of the needed one hundred and one Power Cells. The last Cell they found was an anticlimactic end to their hunt, the scavenged treasure of a Scout Fly in the Precursor Basin near Rock Village, but Maia was grateful enough to put an end to it altogether.
Travelling the Earthlands with Jak had done a lot of good to her, but even good things had to come to an end and there was only so much of Daxter she could put up with before the urge to strangle him became too much. The former Sage honestly didn't know how Jak could stand him.
With all the Cells they'd gathered, the group ported to the Citadel and Maia, who had put plenty of time and effort into it, wasn't going to stay behind. Despite the protests of Samos' daughter, the old fool grudgingly accepted, especially once Jak gave her his support, and Maia could only give Kiera a mocking smile when the others weren't looking.
Returning to the Citadel filled her with an acute sensation of loss that she'd left behind long ago - or so she had thought at the time. What once had been the residence of the Acheron siblings was now an abandoned building: it hadn't been long enough for things to fall into disrepair but if one paid attention, they could spot the growing layer of dust that had started covering everything.
Maia's heart ached with the thought, it only served to reinforce the feeling of abandonment. Everywhere she looked, she could almost see a faint afterimage of Gol, tinkering away in his experiments. Almost.
Without the threat of their presence, the lurkers they'd employed had left the building long, long ago and with no one living in it, the Citadel was slowly falling into oblivion. It was an altogether depressing sight.
A hand laid on her shoulder broke Maia out of her dark thoughts and she glanced behind her to see Jak standing there, a serious look on his boyish face. It didn't take a genius to understand the meaning behind the gesture.
"I'm okay… mostly. Just give me a minute. I want to pay my respects," she muttered and he nodded, walking away to the Precursor lift.
Maia appreciated his concern, but it was unnecessary. She felt loss and melancholy, not suicidal desperation. Standing on the central circular platform, still spinning slowly as if nothing had ever happened, Maia raised her head. Even the noise from the others had diminished, fading further with each second that passed.
"Gol - brother… It's been almost a year since you died. Were my mind still warped by the dark eco, I'm sure I'd have tried to find a way to bring you back and justified it to myself, but… things have changed. It's not how I wish things were, but it's how they are and I can only do the best I can with what I have. I will never forget all the years we lived together, when we only had each other for support and affection. I promised I'd live well and without regrets in your honor so… look out for me from wherever you are, will you? I love you, brother. I'll always miss you."
It was short and to the point, but Maia didn't need more and she knew Gol didn't either. In the end, the Citadel was nothing more than a place - all the important remaining bits of her brother, she carried with her in her memories.
And with that, Maia turned around and began her ascension to the top of the fortress. The others were waiting there for her, knowing she was saying a final farewell for her brother's memory and even Daxter had enough tact to stay silent for a few moments, at least until Jak started pulling out the Power Cells.
At long last, they finally discovered what was behind that sealed Precursor gate in her former fortress. She had never really wondered what could be beyond that door but more ancient Precursor artifacts was honestly not that surprising, even if more than a little disappointing. She had expected... well, she wasn't even sure what she expected, really.
Regardless, they were going to use them because, hell, who wouldn't?
xxOOOxx
"Ooh, my head… I'm so going to kill that little fat bastard," Maia growled, grabbing her head in an attempt to ride out the nasty headache plaguing her. Rising to her feet, her eyes widened in shock as she took in her surroundings.
"What the hell?"
She looked to be in a city made entirely out of metal. The thought itself wasn't all that surprising, the Citadel she had built with Gol was like that, but it still struck her as odd. Theirs was one of a kind, there were no metal cities in the Earthlands as far as she knew and this one was filled with people, she realized, if the individuals running away from her in pure fright were anything to go by.
Well, that certainly reminded her of old times. Any other day and she'd be cackling with amusement. Sadly, she had bigger concerns. Such as… were the hell was Jak and all the other unneeded ones?
In fact, where had they arrived? She remembered using the strange artifacts they'd found behind the Precursor gate, a veritable ugly monstrous head emerging from the floating ring, flying through a vortex of blue and red and…
"There she is! Double time, boys!"
Trouble called, it seemed. Turning, Maia saw a group of five individuals clad in red blood armor rushing at her with large sticks of metal in their hands. It was obvious the sticks were some kind of weapon. Everything else faded into the background. This strange place, Jak's disappearance… none of that mattered in that moment. Only survival mattered.
The armored men took positions around her, their large tubes of metal aimed all at her. Maia didn't move from her spot, studying their strange appearance and weapons with a critical eye and for a moment, none of them moved. That is, until one of them took a step forward and spoke.
"Freeze, stranger! By order of his eminence, Baron Praxis, the Grand Protector of Haven City, you are to be detained for questioning by the Krimzon Guard! Resist and we'll use lethal force!" the leader shouted, but Maia was nonplussed.
"No thanks, I think I'll pass."
"Declining is not an option, scum! Men, seize her!"
Already expecting some kind of retaliation, Maia moved as soon as the man gave the order, but without any kind of reference on what to expect, she still got clipped in the shoulder by the colored projectiles coming from the strange metal sticks. Testing the shoulder, she frowned, realizing it had been deadened of all feeling.
'That just now was eco. They can actually shoot eco in the form of small particles? Some kind of eco shooter. Interesting…'
And then the fight was on.
Despite her confidence, the fight proved a bit more difficult than expected. They weren't exactly an elite hit team, but they were still good and their eco-shooters gave them a clear advantage over her. Maia had to weave carefully between their shoots to avoid being hit. One would've been easy, it was harder to deal with five different lines of fire when they tried to coordinate their shots.
Had she been anyone else, they would have been able to come out on top… but Maia wasn't any simple woman. Before long, the last of the strange guards crumpled at her feet, groaning in pain and Maia was left standing in the middle of a square, with only the company of the five fools at her feet. Everyone else had made themselves scarce minutes ago.
'But more of these guards will show up soon if I don't make myself scarce. That was quite the commotion.' It was imperative that she found some place to stay hidden for the time being before beginning the task of finding Jak… the others too, she considered after a moment. Joy.
Frowning, she looked down at herself. As much as she was partial to her beloved Precursor armor, it was obvious she'd have to find something less inconspicuous to remain unseen. Considering the odds, it would certainly stand out like a sore thumb, but her armor was one of her most prized possessions, having scavenged it several years ago in a Precursor site, and the idea of hiding it away grated Maia.
But there were more pressing matters than her reluctance to part with her armor. Apart from having to learn how to navigate this strange new place, there was also the matter of the big ugly thing that had come from the Rift. Maia was sure the abomination was linked to this mess somehow and she was determined to get to the bottom of it. They would find it, get some answers and then, they would kill it.
It looked like nothing she'd ever seen before, which meant it probably belonged to this place... wherever it was. Determination burning strongly within her, Maia quickly slipped into a dirty alleyway. There was much to do.
First, information; find out where she was and identify the important players, like the man the guard had mentioned - one Baron Praxis, for example. Then, it would be imperative to establish a connection with Jak and Daxter and perhaps, perhaps, the others.
"You better be not sitting on your laurels when I find you, Jak," she muttered before she slipped away into the fog of the alleyway, unseen by all.
Author notes:
Maia is not a particularly nice individual. Samos himself said they weren't exactly all smiles and sunshines and that was before he knew they had been corrupted by the dark eco. The light eco Jak gave her simply drove the madness away, but it didn't change anything else or gave her a completely opposite personality from the one she had before being corrupted, which is why she can be incredibly petty and irrational.
I don't hate Kiera, despite what you might think. She has reasonable grievances with Maia, which the Acheron isn't willing to completely accept her share of the blame (at least to Keira) and being stubborn, they both would clash naturally.
In regards to Jak speaking, I tried to compromise to a middle ground and go from there story-wise. After all, the perfectionist that is this Maia is not someone that would let that half-assed spoken language of Jak's to stay and it gives a natural progression jump point from mute Jak to speaking Jak between the games.
If you see any error or a particularly awkward phrasing, feel free to contact me and I'll fix it. I'm certain I might have missed some.